


Entertain the possibility

by ToxicPineapple



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (but it's important to me so here it is), (mentioned very briefly), Angst, Character Study, Conversations, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fellas is it gay to stand awkwardly in the bathroom with your bro while he breaks down, However we do have some uhhh, Hurt/Comfort, In this house we address that Kaito Momota feels pain, Introspection, Kaito is struggling :(, Late Night Conversations, Light on the actual comforting but they do work shit out, M/M, No hugging in this one sorry fam, Nonbinary Shinguji Korekiyo, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, ambiguous setting, breakdowns, hand holding, mental breakdowns, post simulation, virtual reality au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22799485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: At the closer proximity, Rantaro can see tears dripping from his eyes and down into the sink, but he suspects that those are due to the coughing fit more than they are to any particular emotional trauma. At least, the ones that are falling right now. Without much else to do, he rubs Kaito’s back up and down, trying to relax him enough so he’ll stop hyperventilating a little bit. The lights in here are dim but still far too bright, painful on Rantaro’s eyes.And Kaito, when he finally quiets down, head still bowed, body still shaking, is more fragile than Rantaro has ever seen him.“Alright?” Rantaro asks, as quietly as he can make his voice sound.---Rantaro doesn't really consider himself to be a member of the group. He can't rely on any of them when it comes down to it, can't accept their help in moving past what happened in the simulation.He and Kaito are similar, in that way.
Relationships: Amami Rantaro/Momota Kaito
Comments: 12
Kudos: 123





	Entertain the possibility

**Author's Note:**

> potential spoiler warning for my drv2? not really. the names mentioned in this (asahi, keiji, taku, takako, emiko, the like) don't reveal anything. rantaro is upset both because people he cared about died in the simulation, and because his fellow survivors are somewhere that he can't reach them. any one of the people i mentioned could have lived or died. who knows? :3
> 
> this is one of my heavier works. kaito has so much shit to work through and you guys neglect him so much shit aklsdjf

Rantaro doesn’t sleep much (or at all, frankly) after getting out of the simulation.

The nightmares are a large contributing factor in this, naturally, but if it was nightmares alone he might be able to just shrug his shoulders and deal with it. His memories of his first game, the one he actually lived to see, they’re all hazy enough that by the time he’s waking up in a cold sweat, all the executions and the body discoveries (pounding music and stomping feet, Juro throwing himself against the coffin in an attempt to get it open, tangled limbs at the bottom of the stairs, glass shards flying everywhere with a deafening explosion) they’ve already begun to vanish from his mind.

It’s not the nightmares so much as it is that there is so much for him to think about. Rantaro feels often like there’s this wall separating him and everyone else from his second killing game. Not necessarily on their part; Kaede does her very best to make him feel included and Shuichi scoots over to make room for him at meal times and Kirumi shoots him fleeting, under the table smiles whenever someone say something stupid, and they’re all so very very kind. It’s more because… well, he doesn’t feel like he’s a part of this group.

What joint experiences do they actually have, really? Rantaro was there with them for the first couple days. Kaede will insist that he’s just as much one of them as anyone else, but truthfully? He didn’t experience any of the traumatising things that they did. His night terrors have nothing to do with the loud music that Monokuma played over the speakers the day he died, nothing to do with camera flashes and shot put balls and time limits and suspicious notes from past iterations of himself. Similarly, none of them went through the same things as he did. He can’t talk to them about Taku and Asahi, can’t casually bring up late-night visits to Mari’s lab or Sayuri’s actual talent in conversation, they wouldn’t understand. They weren’t there. They know he was in another killing game, and that’s all they know.

He’s pretty much alienating himself, to be completely honest. They’re all very good people, surely they’d be understanding. He could vent to pretty much any of them and they’d listen. He just doesn’t want to vent to them, is all. Doesn’t want to cry on Kaede’s shoulder when she wouldn’t even understand why Emiko and Keiji are people who he’d have to cry over. Actually, with all of that said, it’s not so difficult to deal with. He cries plenty in the privacy of his own room, but he has outlets. Venting has never been particularly effective for him, anyway. Makes him feel weak, somehow. It’s an obnoxious double standard but one he doesn’t care much to try disabling.

Regardless, Rantaro doesn’t sleep. And he’s never been the type to like staying in one place. Usually he slips out of his room and walks down the halls, passing rooms that belong to strangers that have yellow light peeking out from underneath the door, passing faceless doctors and nurses, passing the rooms of his friends and listening to the heavy silences that come from them. Unlike in the simulation, the rooms here aren’t soundproofed. If he wanted to, he could probably listen in. But nothing ever comes. People are either fast asleep, or very good at muffling their screams.

Tonight in particular, Rantaro seats himself outside of Kaito’s room. Tucks his knees into his chest and looks up at the ceiling. It’s tall, way too tall for him to touch even with a ladder, but lined with vents. Perhaps if Rantaro was small enough to fit inside the vent in his room, he could make his way up there. He isn’t sure why he would, though. What the point would be. They can all leave any time they want to. They’ve just been choosing not to; choosing to wait for everybody else.

(At times, Rantaro isn’t sure why he bothers.)

He likes sitting outside of Kaito’s room most of all. It isn’t like there’s much of a physical difference between Kaito’s any anyone else’s. If anything Kaito’s room is the most bland, because Kaito’s is the most silent. Even Kirumi’s sobs are sometimes unmasked by her pillow.

(Usually Rantaro just leaves if he hears crying from inside someone’s room. He’d like to, comfort them that is, but for some reason it feels like intruding on something deeply personal. The morning after he is certain to pay them extra attention, treat them with extra kindness-- and on the occasions that it is  _ not  _ Kirumi crying, request that she do something special for them-- but in the moment he’s never able to work up the courage to… knock. He’s always been something of a coward. And he never knows what to say to people who are crying. No matter what he does in the moment, things always seem to get worse, somehow.)

But there’s something about Kaito that just makes it feel… safer, outside of his room. It’s a strange sentiment because Rantaro hasn’t felt truly safe in a very, very long time. Still doesn’t. But Kaito is a stabilising presence. A steady person. His smiles come on easily and even after what happened to him in the simulation, after he woke up and realised he wasn’t dead and saw faces around him, he managed a grin for Rantaro and pounded him on the shoulder, saying something about how he knew he was trustworthy from the get-go.

That’s probably what everyone likes about him so much, that security they get from being around him. Rantaro would be a liar if he said he doesn’t feel similarly. Every time Kaito smiles, cracks a joke or spouts a platitude, it sets him at ease. It’s a privilege, actually, to have someone so firm and resolute among them. Without Kaito, everyone would have fallen apart by now for sure. Even when he was dead, he was the backbone of the group. That isn’t going to change in a hurry.

Rantaro knows though that Kaito is struggling too. Since he kind of barricades himself from the rest of the group he has plenty of time to spend observing them. There are moments of weakness that Kaito disguises well. Flashes of pain, of guilt in his eyes whenever Kokichi addresses him. The slow, wary way that he approaches buttons. Sometimes he stops short and grinds his molars, seeming to concentrate very hard on a spot on the floor while he tries to control his breathing. Rantaro doesn’t know why he does that. He always seems to get himself back in the end.

It’s humanising though. They’re kind of like kindred spirits, in a way. Rantaro knows that there’s nobody who Kaito relies on. Rantaro is the same. It’s an awful, selfish reason to feel safe around another person. But knowing that another member of this group is as isolated as he is gives him a twisted kind of relief. And maybe someday he’ll gather the courage to reach out to Kaito, offer space to drop down those walls a little bit. If he stops running from his weaknesses for two damn seconds. For now he settles for plopping himself down outside of Kaito’s door at night, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about a group of friends he’s not sure he’ll ever see again.

Tonight Rantaro doesn’t bother sleeping at all, just grabs a book and a sweatshirt and makes his way out into the hallway. The floor is cool beneath his feet. In the simulation this wouldn’t have been a problem. His feet were callused and hardy from all those adventures. Real-life Rantaro’s feet are unused to such things. He moves quickly and as lightly as possible across the tiles in an attempt to spend as little time exposed to the cold as possible.

Kaito’s door has a golden star on it. Someone’s fucked up idea of a joke, Rantaro supposes. His name is ingraved on it. When Kaito saw it initially, he burst out laughing and turned it upside down. Rantaro thought he saw a flash of bitterness in Kaito’s face as he disappeared inside.

The star is still turned, of course. Either the workers here couldn’t be bothered to change it, or Kaito’s moved it back every time they’ve tried. He seems stubborn enough.

The book Rantaro is reading is good, a memoir that Korekiyo recommended to him, on one of the days when they were speaking. They leave their room more often now but they rarely say anything to anybody. Rantaro thinks it’s because he isn’t really a part of the group that Korekiyo felt comfortable enough to speak to him. Regardless, he’s always been a fan of memoirs. They carry unique perspective, and they can often be really funny. The one that Korekiyo recommended is certainly sardonic. Rantaro has laughed aloud more than once reading it.

Tonight he barely gets more than a page in before he hears something. He freezes in place, turning his head so that his ear is closer to the crack in Kaito’s door, and listens. The sound drifts out again, and Rantaro hesitates, starting to close his book. It’s when Kaito coughs for the third time, choked up and hoarse, that he tosses the thing to the side and jumps to his feet.

Distantly he knows that this shouldn’t be any different from the crying, because Kaito obviously can’t have any  _ actual  _ diseases. It was something made up by the simulation. Even so, it’s one thing knowing that and another having the vivid memories of seeing Kaito cough up blood on screen. Seeing him die in that rocket with a sad, tired smile on his face, and a trickle of painfully bright pink blood out of the corner of his mouth. Rantaro is almost auto piloting, grabbing the door and wrenching it open. It’s unlocked. Their doors probably don’t even lock, come to think of it.

The room is dark, but a yellow light streams in from the bathroom, and Rantaro strides to the doorway, stopping abruptly when he spots Kaito’s frame, leaning over the sink as his shoulders shake with coughs.

He never gels his hair anymore. Usually he just ties it into a low ponytail or something, or else just lets it hang around his eyes. His posture still carries the same exuberance as it always has, so Rantaro doesn’t really notice much. Right now, however, Kaito’s hair is matted and sweaty, hanging down and obstructing his eyes from view. His coughs are rough and painful sounding, as though he’s choking on his own tongue, and his shoulders shake hard as he tries to suck in dry breathes of air. His knuckles are white on the edges of the sink.

Rantaro doesn’t think, he just advances, and rests a hand on Kaito’s trembling back. “Easy,” Rantaro speaks softly, trying not to startle him, but there’s not much of a point. Kaito doesn’t respond at all, only chokes on a breath and spits into the sink before coughing again. At the closer proximity, Rantaro can see tears dripping from his eyes and down into the sink, but he suspects that those are due to the coughing fit more than they are to any particular emotional trauma. At least, the ones that are falling right now. Without much else to do, he rubs Kaito’s back up and down, trying to relax him enough so he’ll stop hyperventilating a little bit. The lights in here are dim but still far too bright, painful on Rantaro’s eyes.

And Kaito, when he finally quiets down, head still bowed, body still shaking, is more fragile than Rantaro has ever seen him.

“Alright?” Rantaro asks, as quietly as he can make his voice sound. Beneath his hand, Rantaro feels it when Kaito sucks in a sharp breath, releasing the sink with one hand and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He straightens up, abruptly, and Rantaro pulls his hand away, watching Kaito push his hair out of his eyes, wipe away the couple of tears that escaped.

His grin is shaky. “Yeah, I’m good,” he would sound convincing if his voice wasn’t so hoarse. Rantaro bites his lip, recalling how he lied so convincingly about his illness back in the simulation. Kaito seems to sense his hesitation, because his expression sobers a bit and he speaks again. “Really, I’m okay. Just-- y’know, force of habit, and all.”

_ Force of habit.  _ Rantaro can’t stop himself from frowning, from crossing his arms across his chest. “Like, phantom pains?” he asks.

Kaito looks distinctly uncomfortable. “Can, uh, can we actually not? I’d really rather--”

“It sounded like you were dying,” Rantaro says. He doesn’t mean to sound so accusatory, but that’s the way the words come out. Kaito winces, reaching up to rub the back of his head. His lilac eyes, when he cracks them open, seem much more vulnerable (wounded) than usual. “I’m sorry,” Rantaro apologises instinctively. “I just-- Jesus, does that happen a lot?”

“No,” Kaito shakes his head. “Not a lot, just--” he pulls a face as he mulls over whatever figure he was planning on giving Rantaro. “Well, I still wouldn’t say a lot, but saying it happens  _ infrequently  _ would probably be a bit of an exaggeration, huh? Still!” He holds up his hands, as though surrendering. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Momota, if you’re--” Rantaro bites his tongue and tries to think out his words better. “If you’re coughing a lot, that doesn’t feel like--”

“I’m not sick, okay?” Kaito snaps. Rantaro raises his eyebrows, schooling his expression into something mild. Despite his lack of overt offense, Kaito seems immediately abashed by his own outburst. He pulls away his gaze. “Ah, fuck. Sorry. That’s a force of habit too.” He wrings his hands. “Listen, man, it’s like… shit. I dunno how to describe it. Most times I’m like, completely fine. Normal, y’know? Back to the healthy guy I was before the simulation. But sometimes the feeling of-- of needing to cough, it like, comes back.”

Rantaro doesn’t respond, just watches Kaito fidget as he attempts to gather his thoughts further. It feels something of an obvious situation, if Rantaro is being honest. Those moments where Kaito pauses mid sentence and takes that extra time to compose himself, he’s probably shoving down the urge to start hacking like crazy. It would tear Shuichi and Maki to pieces, but more than that Kaito himself would probably be absolutely destroyed. He seems stressed enough that  _ Rantaro  _ saw him coughing, and honestly, they’re pretty much in the same boat.

“And other times, I can taste, like, blood. Not because my throat and lungs are actually bleeding, alright? The disease was completely a part of the simulation. It’s just a memory of blood. And it keeps getting stronger.” Kaito’s expression twists a little bit. “Sometimes I cough into my arm and pull it away expecting the sleeve to be splattered with red. Or pink, I guess,” he adds, chuckling bitterly, but Rantaro doesn’t really think there’s much in the statement to laugh about.

“Have you,” and the answer will be no, so Rantaro doesn’t even know why he’s asking, “spoken to anybody about this?”

“Who’d I talk to?” Kaito snorts derisively. “The therapist they assigned me? No offense, man, but I’d honestly rather die.”

“I agree,” Rantaro says flippantly. “I mean one of our other friends. Akamatsu, Saihara. The rest of them. I’m sure anybody would be fine with listening to you.”

Kaito frowns at Rantaro for a long moment. “I can’t do that shit, man. Weigh them down like that. They’ve got enough to worry about. Have you taken a look at Akamatsu’s neck? Harumaki and Shuichi, there’s no way I could put that on them. They’re my sidekicks. As for everyone else,” he shrugs. “Figure they rely on me too much to be able to be there for me. Not that that’s a bad thing,” he adds hastily. “Just, I don’t want their, I dunno, assumptions about my struggles to keep them from coming to me if they need help.”

(Distantly, Rantaro wonders if that’s what he’s been doing. He’s been pushing them away, for sure, but perhaps they’ve been letting him retreat because they think he’s going through too much to be able to make any real connections with them. The thought makes him sad for some reason.)

“You good?” Kaito asks, and Rantaro blinks, realising he spaced off. His smile is wry.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Rantaro dismisses, waving a hand. “I’m not really the one you should be worried about right now.”

“Who else is there?” Kaito frowns, looking genuinely baffled. Rantaro raises his eyebrows. “What, me? Pfft, dude, relax,” Kaito actually chuckles, shaking his head. “It’s just some lingering memories of that disease, everything is perfectly fine. It’ll be going away soon enough.”

“You said it’s getting worse,” Rantaro accuses, “and you haven’t told anybody that it’s been happening.”

“Yeah, well,” Kaito scoffs at him. “I’m not the one who’s been self-isolating since I got out of the simulation, am I?”

He doesn’t mean to wince, since what Kaito just said is true, if a bit below the belt, but he can’t help it. Yeesh, way to bring his own problems into this. Kaito’s expression seems to melt a bit, a flicker of guilt appearing in his eyes before he banishes it, seems to lock it away as he clears his throat.

“Sorry, that was out of line,” he mutters. “Guess we’re both kind of fucked, huh?”

“Mhm,” Rantaro looks away, folding his arms across his chest. He’s not going to turn and walk away, as much as he’d sort of like to, but he doesn’t have much of a desire to make Kaito feel any better. At least, not about what he just said-- the other shit, Rantaro is perfectly willing to talk about. The tiles in the bathroom are linoleum, and cold, but strangely not as noticable to Rantaro as they were before. They are like a checker board, black and off-white. Matte. Beneath his feet, they don’t feel smooth, but rather soft, almost. Fuzzy. It’s a difficult texture to describe.

“Amami--” Kaito seems to have been made distinctly uncomfortable by the silence. “Look, dude, I didn’t mean-- sorry, I know you were just trying to-- man, I wish I knew like, two or three things about you, y’know?”

At that, Rantaro looks up, raising his eyebrows again. He doesn’t need to ask why; it’s implicit, loud in the silence despite nothing having been said.

“With most people, it’s pretty easy for me to figure out how to comfort them,” Kaito explains. His tone is tight, anxious, which Rantaro has never heard from him before. “Like, with Shuichi and Harumaki, for example-- tough love? Totally works. I tell them their flaws and then meet them head-on with a positive mindset. Akamatsu isn’t so receptive to that, usually she just needs a shoulder to cry on and encouraging words, and she can figure out the rest. Hoshi is kind of harder but he drops hints every so often. Doesn’t like talking all that much. And shit, Ouma is a tough nut to crack, but I think I’ve been getting through to him? A little bit, at least. I mean, the guy’s a pain in the  _ ass,  _ but he also totally dealt with a fuck ton of shit all by himself, and there’s a lot that he needs to--”

“Momota,” Rantaro cuts him off, because he’s rambling by now, his hands shaking hard in front of him, where they’re still locked together. “There’s no way that you can possibly think about comforting  _ me  _ or anyone else when you haven’t even addressed your own problems yet.”

Kaito opens and closes his mouth. His brows furrow. “Hey, are you saying that I’m--”

“No.” Rantaro shakes his head. Closes his hands into fists to keep them from shaking too. “You’re not a coward, or whatever you were going to say. At least,  _ I _ don’t think you are,” and for some reason, this makes Kaito wince again, reaching up to rest his hand against the side of his head, as though suddenly having a splitting headache. “If anything, I’m the coward in here,” Rantaro continues. “You’re right that I’ve been self-isolating. The only reason I’m not really a part of this group is because I intentionally take myself out of it. I guess I just don’t want to get close to people like I did before only to lose them all again.”  _ Takako. Asahi. Keiji.  _ “When things get tough for me, I run away. Even back in the simulation, that was my answer to everything. Turning my back on it.”

While Rantaro regroups, gathers his thoughts again, Kaito looks at him, his expression totally unreadable. Rantaro isn’t sure what to make of it, and so he just plows onwards.

“It isn’t that I don’t  _ want  _ to reach out to people, you know? I spend most nights sitting outside of people’s doors-- yours, usually, but other people’s too-- just, thinking about the chance that I  _ might  _ talk to them someday. I entertain the possibility and put myself close enough where I could if I wanted to. But I won’t. Compared to me, I think you’re pretty brave, to be honest.” Rantaro pauses. Inhales deeply. “Just-- maybe your priorities are a little mixed up, because I think everyone here would much rather see you happy than torn apart by your desire to help them all.”

There’s a heavy gap of silence between then, and then Kaito blurts in a rough voice, “Turn around.”

  
“What?”

“Just-- can you--” Kaito inhales sharply. “I don’t want--”

His voice breaks, and Rantaro’s eyes widen a bit, but he nods quickly, turning around so he’s facing away, staring out into the dark, empty room while Kaito breaks down in sobs behind him.

(After a while, Rantaro works up to courage to reach back a hand, offering it just in case, and when Kaito takes it his grip is tight enough to be painful, but Rantaro shelves the thoughts for later, decides not to care about them, because Kaito needs this right now, far more than Rantaro needs circulation in his fingers.)

After some indeterminate amount of time, Kaito stops crying, and when he lets Rantaro go, Rantaro takes that as his cue to leave. He wants to say something else, but there isn’t anything really for him to say, so instead he holds his tongue and slips out the door.

They see each other the next morning, but neither of them brings it up. When they make eye contact across the table at breakfast, Rantaro finds that he can’t read Kaito’s expression, and Kaito quickly averts his gaze, and Rantaro supposes that perhaps that is the end of it. The day goes by as they typically do, awkward conversations and forced small talk punctuated by real bubbles of affection, between Shuichi and Kaede, between Gonta and Kokichi, the like. Rantaro is admittedly in a bit of a daze throughout it all.

Still, when evening falls, he can’t help but return to Kaito’s door. Sits himself down against the wall and opens his book. Tonight he gets halfway through the third page before he is interrupted.

This time, though, his interruption is Kaito’s door swinging open. His eyes burn in the darkness, and seem to weigh a million pounds. He doesn’t smile, but he gestures with his chin.

“Come inside,” Kaito says, a bit gruffly. “It’s probably a bit more comfortable than the hall out here. And anyway,” he pauses, but continues after a while, “you’re gonna have to do a bit more than just entertaining the possibility eventually, right?”

Rantaro rolls his lips between his teeth, but finds himself breaking into a small smile, which, after another pause, Kaito returns. As Rantaro marks his page, Kaito thrusts out his hand, offering Rantaro help to stand up (and perhaps to do more than that) and without a moment of hesitation, Rantaro reaches up to take it.

**Author's Note:**

> me: i like intimate hurt/comfort works! hugs and forehead kisses and whispers in the dark :3
> 
> me also: how about standing there awkwardly and facing away from the other person while he breaks down
> 
> there are a lot of different kinds of comfort! side note why is it that in all my kaito hurt/comfort fics he always breaks down when they can't really see his face as he cries :/ like in the first saimota one he hugs shuichi from behind and then in the other he talks to him over the phone,,, me and kaito man we have a complex
> 
> uhhh
> 
> i wrote this because!! an amamota piece i read!!!! hurt my feelings!!! and this is deadass becoming an otp of mine idk i love these dudes
> 
> i'll write something happy with them in it soon, something funny and aggravating and intensely homoerotic. but for now u get angst
> 
> also Yes since i've finished femslash february in advance you Will be getting other writing pieces this month, thanks for asking
> 
> get ready for another influx of amami >:D i've missed my boy
> 
> side note: almost clicked "this work is part of a series" bc i'm so used to writing femslash feb someone help me


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